A new capability for monitoring the coastal ocean from geostationary orbit

Coastal waters are highly dynamic. Tides, diurnal winds, river runoff, upwelling and storm winds drive currents from one to several knots. Three hour or better sampling is required to resolve these features, and to track red tides, oil spills or other features of concern for coastal environmental management. To provide this capability NOAA is planning to include hyperspectral coastal waters imaging (HES-CW) as part of the hyperspectral environment suite (HES) on the next generation Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES-R) to be launched in 2012. The HES-CW will image the U.S. coastal waters once every three hours, with selected regions hourly. It will have 300 m spatial resolution and the high signal-to-noise ratio necessary for coastal imaging. To prepare for HES-CW NOAA has formed the Coastal Ocean Applications and Science Team (COAST). COAST goals are to assure that ocean applications and science requirements are met and to help NOAA prepare for the immediate use of the data when HES-CW is launched. This presentation describes the HES-CW requirements, current status and the activities of the COAST team to prepare for HES-CW